love is a ghost you can't control
by katanafleet
Summary: five times Spike wanted to kiss Buffy - and one time she kissed him.
1. Something Blue

He had just spent the entire day kissing her; he'd think by now he would want to stop. As he sat tied to what could now be considered Spike's Chair in Giles' living room, he wished he wanted to stop.

Any normal vampire cursed into being engaged to the Slayer, kissing her on a regular basis throughout the day, and planning the rest of his whole bloody unlife with her should have, logically, wanted to kick her in the face, run away from her, and spend the rest of that unlife gathering the lost pieces of his dignity.

No. Not him. Before she even had a chance to clamber off of him and stand up, he decided that he wanted to frame her face in his hands, weave her hair through his fingers, and pull her to him and spend another twenty minutes lost in her. He really wanted to kiss the Slayer.

Thankfully he didn't do this. He acted absolutely disgusted, tried to wipe his mouth out, then he turned and tried to run, but Buffy's high kick caught him in the back before he made it out of the crypt. She grabbed his arm and silently walked him out of the dank crypt – if he ever got this chip out, he would find himself a crypt, but a nicer one – and they all strolled back to Giles' lovely home, the witch walking sadly behind them.

"At least the demons are gone," Xander said.

Anya nodded vigorously. "They were interfering with mine and Xander's—"

"That's enough, honey," Xander interrupted, a blush forming across his face.

Spike chuckled as Anya scowled but put her hand in Xander's. Buffy tightened her hand around his arm, just about tight enough to cut off his nonexistent circulation, and he didn't say the comment he hadn't quite finished forming. It would have been hilarious, though, and would have made Xander sputter and Buffy laugh. Pity that Anya hadn't been able to finish her sentence. It probably would also have made Xander sputter and Buffy laugh.

He wanted Buffy to laugh, then he wanted to kiss her. He hated himself. He really couldn't be considered a vampire at all anymore. First no biting people, now wanting to snog the Slayer. Angelus would call him an embarrassment, and Dru would send him packing. Again.

Giles met them all at his door with a great grin. "I can see again!" he nearly squealed.

"And there's no demons following us!" Xander returned. Spike didn't say anything about the wedding, and Buffy merely dragged him to his chair and started tying him down in stern silence.

He couldn't make sense of that woman. Was she embarrassed? That wouldn't make sense; the spell hadn't been her doing or fault. Was she angry? No cause to be angry either; it was just a bit of snogging and some irrational thoughts concerning songs for the first dance. He gave up. The mind of this Slayer was already a bit messed up, and now the witch had thoroughly mixed it up.

She sat down across from him as he squirmed a bit in the rope. Unfortunately, the knot was going to hold for a few hours. Buffy glared at him silently, only increasing the voltage when he glanced down at her lips.

He looked away. He didn't feel much like tempting the wrath of the Slayer.

Anya and Xander and Giles started talking all at once as Willow moved into the kitchen. Spike heard bits and pieces about suddenly being able to see and nearly forgetting the spell for summoning her old boss and fighting most gallantly. He watched Willow struggle with chocolate chips and tried not to laugh – out of concern, of course, the girl had just lost a love – when she dropped a bowl on her toes. Buffy just sat in silence, alternating between staring at Spike and her friends.

"What?" he finally asked when she started staring at him again.

She jumped. "Nothing," she replied. Too quickly, he thought. But when she clearly started to think about why she was staring at him, she pursed her lips. He couldn't stop a bit of a growl. Buffy rolled her eyes and glanced into the kitchen. "Need help, Will?" She paused. "What are you doing, anyway?"

"Making cookies," the meek voice of a powerful witch replied. Speaking of contrasts, Spike thought with not a little bit of amusement. "To heal my heart and stop my guilt."

"Oh," Buffy said. Spike grinned. Nothing much else you could say to that, really.

Eventually Anya helped Willow with the cookies, and he couldn't help snarking. "Don't I get a cookie?"

"No," Buffy retorted.

He sighed. Rude, but at least she was speaking, finally. "Well, I got to have something. I still have Buffy taste in my mouth." Not that he was really complaining. She tasted like she smelled – strawberries and cream, warm and cold at the same time. It was a pleasant combination.

"You're a pig, Spike," she replied, somehow managing to make it sound completely surprising and also a basic fact of life.

"Yeah." He didn't deny it. He'd been called far worst, and he suspected he would be again. Then he made some quip about her choice for first dance, and everyone's faces when they heard him were priceless. Then Willow, trying to look angry, shoved a cookie in his mouth as Buffy stormed away. Totally worth it.

"We may be into a forgetting spell later," he heard Buffy say from the kitchen. He bit off a piece of cookie. Maybe she would be, but he wanted to remember what it was like to have Buffy in his lap, remember everything about tonight even as he cringed in embarrassment to recall everything that happened.

It would probably be better to remember, to remember why exactly he wanted to kiss the Slayer so badly.

As he took another bite of admittedly delicious cookie, he heard Buffy screech about that commando boy. He growled again and glared at the kitchen. As she ran out the door, he tried not to think about why her words about a decent, reliable boy were a hot iron stake in his heart.


	2. No Place Like Home

Spike knew he was being creepy, but he sort of couldn't stop himself. He had to watch her, watch over her, make sure nothing would – so fine, he was being creepy. _Vampire_. What else could she expect from him? It wasn't like Buffy would ever need know he'd been standing watch, creeping, or stalking, depending on definition, for the past few days.

Spike had only been standing outside of Buffy's house for an hour and a half when the shadows in the living room changed and he could tell that Buffy was coming outside. She yanked the door open – getting away from something? What had the tiny Niblet done now? – and stepped outside. Almost immediately, he could tell that she sensed him. Honestly, he found that rather sexy. That she could sense his presence even as he could smell her getting closer and closer.

Before he could move, she yanked him out from behind the tree. She was even more beautiful than usual, and she was always gorgeous. He appreciated the leather jacket for a few seconds. Why did he have to be in _love_ with the _Slayer_?

They exchanged civil greetings (was it just him or did his soft little _Hi, Buffy_ sound longing? He hoped it was just him. Of course, the only other one who heard the sentence was the oblivious one he longed for, so…) then she started on the Spike abuse. "Don't take this the wrong way but—" Then she punched him in the nose. He couldn't stop his exclamation of pain as his nose bent under the pressure.

At least she hadn't broken it this time. He was a bloody masochist. Seeking out that which could kill him most easily, efficiently, and remorselessly in the universe and choosing to love it and worship at its—her—small feet.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. He opened his mouth to defend his obviously not-well-thought-out stalking but she stopped him with a glare. "Five words or less."

Fine then, he thought. "Out... for... a... walk... bitch." Only clever thing he'd thought that night, let alone said. Not that he'd said much. Chain-smoking and staring don't leave much time for conversation with the average passerby.

"Out for a walk at night by my house. No one has time for this, _William_ ," she said. The name set him off, and he started babbling. Even as he was talking about her house and his previous habits of bursting into flame, he had no idea what he was talking about. He really wanted to lean down and kiss her until he shut up and she shut up and who knows what else but _why did he love her_?

Someone needed to shut up and he nominated himself. Buffy was clearly in favor. Her turn to talk. So beautiful, she was.

She pursed her lips. Now she was even more adorable than usual. He really, really wanted to kiss her. Probably his average state of being at this point, was the desire to kiss Buffy. "Fine. Keep going, I cut you a break." She waved him along. Why did the word _adorable_ just occur to him to describe the Slayer? Because she was so tiny, yet so fierce, so small, yet so deadly. How could she not be adorable?

Right, his turn to talk. "Oh, yeah. Okay, let me guess... you won't kill me? Ooh... the whole crowd-pleasing threats-and-swagger routine. How stunningly original." Then he insulted the soldier boy as he liked to do. He really hated Riley, more than anyone else except Angel. "I never really liked you anyway and... and you have stupid hair." And then he was stalking away, leaving a no-doubt confused Slayer and a dozen cigarette butts behind. The hair insult? Seriously, Spike? As he walked away, he contemplated that comment. Why had he said it? To throw her off the trail? Did he actually think her hair was stupid? Spoilers – he didn't. But who could say?

Her hair was magnificent, like a golden waterfall of beauty and splendor he could lose his eyes and hands in. He wanted to brush that hair out in the mornings after a night of running his fingers through it, and he wanted to have to pull it out of his mouth every morning because she couldn't be bothered to use a hair tie to hold it back when they went to bed. He wanted it that color—sunshine, the color Dru said he was covered in—to be the background of his life.

He was officially in the lovesick category of love. This was getting worse than William the Bloody Awful Poet ever got with Cecily.

Nothing original said, nothing stupid done, nothing new accomplished. He turned around and smacked his head into another tree. Then he cursed, groaned, and lit another cigarette all at once. He hated his entire unlife. First he wanted to kiss the Slayer, just kiss; that was it. Now he loved her more than anything else in all the bloody _world_ and wanted to kiss her still.

Officially buggered.


	3. The Gift

They walked to the Summers home in silence. Spike didn't know what to say, and Buffy clearly wasn't in the mood for talking.

Who would be, he mused. She'd just fully processed that her sister had been kidnapped and was going to be used as a gateway into a hell dimension. Which made perfect sense, considering that Dawn was the great and mystical Key.

His life was so much simpler before he fell in love with the Slayer and realized that he had to protect the ones she loved.

Idiotic emotions.

He glanced at her face. For once, there was only one emotion painted across her features instead of the eight million he had become accustomed to deciphering. And that was determination.

Buffy Summers would save her sister, and she didn't care who got in her way.

That was something he adored about her, that fierceness and power to conquer anything she set her mind to. Spike loved everything about her, of course, but the resolve that had shone through her face the first time they'd met—beautiful. Possibly her best trait, the ability to believe in herself and know that she and her friends would succeed.

He wanted to figure out some words of reassurance. Not that she needed them, of course. But he needed to say something. The words he sought were on the tip of his tongue.

Before long, he found himself climbing the steps of the porch. Buffy threw the door open— _why_ did they never lock the bloody thing? It wouldn't save them from demons or anything, but it would make him sleep better, knowing that at least something between the sisters and danger—and stepped toward the stairs. "Weapons are by the TV. I'll grab the stuff upstairs," she said as she ascended the first step.

He didn't have to test the doorway to know it wouldn't let him in. "Buffy…" She turned around, thankfully. Sheepishly, he held his hand up to demonstrate the invisible barrier. "If you wanna just hand them over the threshold…"

He wasn't trying to be invited inside. He didn't deserve to be there; he knew that. But it would make it a hell of a lot easier to fetch the weapons if he could go in. Buffy's shoulders relaxed slightly. "Come in, Spike," she said, a strange note of amusement in her voice.

He stared at her for a moment, rather considerably shocked. "Presto," he murmured as he stepped into the house. "No barrier." He _really_ hadn't expected that. He strode over to the chest of weapons, shaking off the surprise. "I won't bother with the small stuff. Couple of good axes should hold off Glory's mates while you take on the lady herself." He was so looking forward to seeing Glory get absolutely destroyed by the Slayer. A bloody gorgeous sight, that would be.

Buffy interrupted his browsing. "We're not all gonna make it." She stood barely inside the living room, just close enough that his skin positively tingled with her proximity. "You know that?"

"Yeah," he said, stepping away from the chest and weapons in hands. "Always knew I'd go down fightin'." He wasn't quite sure why he said that. Reassurance that he didn't have any regrets? Telling her that he would be okay if he was the one to go tonight? Why would she care? She didn't. He knew that.

Her expression, so serious and beautiful, didn't change. "I'm counting on you to protect her." _Dawn_. He remembered her words before they'd tried to escape Sunnydale a few short days ago, and her trust in him made his heart glow even as he felt it break in half.

Buffy thought she was going to die. She had to make sure her little sister would be okay. What she didn't know—she'd never needed to ask him to protect Dawn. "Till the end of the world," he said, completely soberly. "Even if that happens to be tonight," he added.

There would be _nothing_ that could keep him from protecting Dawn, the little bit he loved almost as much as her big sister. Somehow, that was something none of the Scoobies had ever had cause to doubt, and he would keep it that way. No matter what happened tonight. No matter the price.

Buffy turned back to the stairs. "I'll be a minute." He followed her to the base of the staircase.

The words he'd been searching for all night appeared in his mind. He gathered his courage. "I know you'll never love me." She turned around, her eyes widening just slightly. That surprise sparked the constant flame in his chest. "I know that I'm a monster. But you treat me like a man. And that's..."

So much more than he could ever have wished for. A dream he'd never deserved. He wanted to step up to her all of a sudden. He would take one step, just enough that they'd be on the same level, and he wanted to kiss her. If he was going to die tonight—and he would be damned if that happened to her or Dawn or anyone else instead—he wanted one last happy moment. One last sight of sunshine before the darkness.

The moment passed as quickly as it came. What was he thinking? They had a battle to get to: a war to win, a goddess to destroy, a Key to rescue. There was no time for consolation.

"Get your stuff," he murmured, motioning upstairs. She had to get the clothes for the Buffy-bot, prepare to trick Glory into her demise. Clever girl, she was. "I'll be here."

Buffy turned to go upstairs and he watched her go. Her golden hair shone in the dim light.

He knew someone would die tonight. But he would spend his last moments making sure that Buffy got to hold her sister once more.


	4. Hell's Bells

There was still a part of his heart dripping blood.

Not literally, of course. Figuratively. Poetically.

 _Tell me you love me_.

 _Tell me you want me._

Those had been the easiest confirmations of his life.

But Spike was pretty sure every beat of his dead heart was just as painful as the dusty remains that a wooden stake would have left behind. He couldn't know for sure—the closest he'd ever gotten was Soldier Boy and the plastic stick of agony.

 _It's over_.

She'd told him it was over weeks ago, and he'd done nothing about it. Despite what most liked to think, he did respect women and their right to break up with him. Hadn't happened often, of course, as most ended up either being thrown out or dead. Neither of which would usually be his fault.

But this time. This time, he got to watch the woman he loved above everything in the world step into his crypt and tell him it was done.

 _I'm using you. And it's killing me. I'm sorry, William_.

Yeah, it hurt. A lot.

He watched her flit around the church keeping order amongst humans and demons, the greenish blue monstrosity wrapped around her flashing when it caught the light. Her hair was tied up in an intricate braid and she'd done her makeup to perfection, the subtle tints bringing out the beauty she sometimes hid.

Her lips were—nope. Couldn't think about that. Not even close to a proper time for that. Especially since he brought a date.

He glanced around the room and didn't see the insipid twit he'd found two days ago on specific purpose to get over Buffy. He shrugged mentally and pondered on his ability to completely lose her like he had lost the blonde beauty he longed for. It would probably be a bit easier.

Buffy appeared a few feet away from him and he leaned back against the wall, hoping he looked more nonchalant than he felt, considering that his insides were a mass of _aaahhh beautiful Buffy_. He stood up a little straighter when it was clear she intended to say something. She stepped up to him as if preparing for battle.

"Hello, Buffy," he said, completely ruining his resolution to not sound lovesick.

She _smiled_. "Hey," she murmured back.

They couldn't even keep eye contact and his heart broke a bit more. "It's a happy occasion," he finally said. She nodded. "You meet my friend?" he challenged.

She shifted on her toes a little. "No. not yet. But she seems like a very nice attempt at making me jealous." And that was the most honest statement he'd ever heard her say.

He exhaled. "Is it working?" At this point, he didn't even know what he wanted her to answer. A few hours ago, he'd have longed for her jealousy, but now that he was looking at her, and she was shining, he wanted that glow to remain. Happy Buffy.

"A little." _Hell_ , he wanted to kiss her all of a sudden. "It doesn't change anything, but—if you're wildly curious, then yeah. It hurts." The pain in her voice twisted his heart again.

It made him lose his head. "I'm sorry." He regained his head. "I mean, _good_." He knew she knew he was covering. Absolutely bluffing and absolutely failing this little game of lover's quarrel. Not that they were even ever lovers. They were a blip in the night, something that should never have been.

He realized then, how much he didn't belong in this pretty church with these happy people. He tried to escape, and she wouldn't tell him to go. "You have every right to be here," she said. "I pretty much deserve—"

"That's not true," he cut in. "You…" Bloody hell, what was wrong with him. "God, this is hard." He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and longed for the Hellmouth to swallow him whole.

"Yeah," she murmured. And right then, there was nothing he wanted more than to kiss her. Even just hold her. Touch her hair. Stay with her forever. He didn't ask for much.

He tried to leave again. She was actually jealous. And now he couldn't leave, couldn't imagine the plans he'd had for this girl he could barely remember. She tried to laugh at his insistence of being evil, something even he couldn't laugh about anymore. He fumbled through the conversation like he was seventeen again.

"I'll just go, give my best to the happy couple, whatever," he finally managed, blurting it in the general direction of the glow that is the woman he loved.

Her smile did him in, as always. He screwed his head back on straight.

"It's nice to watch you be happy. For them, even. I don't see it a lot. You, uh... You glow." She was the sunshine he always wanted, the death he always reached for, the brightness in the darkness he could never escape.

She took the compliment—the _fact_ —with a smile. "That's because the dress is radioactive." Her words made him fall in love all over again. They laughed for a second and she turned to go.

"But it hurts?" he couldn't resist asking again as he turned to grab his date. He instantly hated himself for the words, but he couldn't stop.

Her repeated answer somehow, inexplicably, gave him hope. "Yeah."

Only one answer to that. "Thanks." He stepped forward, trying not to run for the door. He grabbed the girl's arm and shoved them outside, well aware that the burning on the back of his neck was Buffy's stare.

He didn't want to leave, not anymore. He wanted to stay. He wanted to convince her to take him back, monster that he was. He wanted to kiss her forehead, hug her, hold her exactly like that for as long as she would let him, help her stay out of the darkness.

But it wasn't his place. It never was.

So he ripped his heart out once again and left it at the church, with her.

It was better to leave it with her, anyway.


	5. Touched

He's often thought that Buffy was the most stubborn bloody waif he'd ever encountered, and she's proving his theory right. He's just trying to convince her to go back home— _home_ , that place Faith and the rest of her Slayerlings have taken over—and she's bloody well convinced she's done.

He blusters something about the mess, which is completely invalid, since the Summers home is always messy. Too many people.

"Sounds dire," she replies dryly, possibly sinking further into the borrowed bed.

He sits down next to her. "I didn't see a lot," he admits. "I came, hit Faith a bunch of times, and left."

"Really?" For the first time in far too long, there's enthusiasm in her voice. She tries to become the Good Slayer again, but he grabs ahold of that idea.

"Oh, you say the word, and she's a footnote in history. I'll make it look like a painful accident." And it would be so much fun, too. Well worth the bruises he'd probably get.

Buffy droops again. "That's my problem. I say the word, some girl dies. Every time."

"There's always casualties in war," he sighs.

The tone in Buffy's voice is enough to make him want to stake himself—completely the wrong words. This is not what he wanted for her. A world of war and destruction, loss and pain. She stands, done with the excuses she thinks she's giving. "I've always cut myself off. I've always—Being the Slayer made me different. But it's my fault I stayed that way. People are always trying to connect to me. And I just…slip away." She motions toward him. "You should know."

He smirks inwardly. "I seem to recall a fair amount of connecting." It's not the time for an outward smirk.

She mutters that she was merely unattainable—so wrong. He finds himself standing, completely ready for a debate. She was never just an object, or something he wanted because he had to chase it. She was never something as common as his next conquest. She was always so much more—everything.

"Please, let's not go over the past," Buffy sighs, sitting back down. He takes the figurative microphone, his turn to talk. And of course he buggers it up.

"You're insufferable."

"Thank you," Buffy says, rolling her eyes. He detects the slightest bit of hurt in her voice. "That really helped."

"I'm not trying to cheer you up," he retorts.

"Then what are you saying?" He's got no idea—something just made him mad. Quite angry, and it was the idea that he only wanted her because she was a beautiful Slayer that a vampire could never have. She's always been so much more. She's always been _everything_.

She asks to sleep. Nope, he's not done yet. He'll not be done until she gets a fire back in her eyes.

He kneels down before her and her eyes widen in a slight panic. "You listen to me. I've been alive a bit longer than you. And dead a lot longer than that. I've seen things you couldn't imagine. And done things I prefer you didn't." He muses on his decisions in the past. But one decision that he could never regret… that's her. "And there's only one thing I've ever been sure of. _You_."

She's always been the sunshine in his life, the light to bring him back from the edge. The needle in the compass that was his soul until he regained this stranger abiding in his chest. He looks up at her and watches a tear form in her eye. He wants to lean up and kiss it off of her cheek, but that's certainly not something he can ever consider again. But he reaches up, hopes she'll let him brush it away.

She turns away, but he keeps talking. "Hey, look at me. I'm not asking you for anything," he murmurs. "When I say I love you, it's not because I want you, or because I can't have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you are. What you do. How you _try_. I've seen your kindness and your strength. I've seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You're a hell of a woman." _The_ woman. The only woman. "You're the one, Buffy."

He's shocked her; he can see that. "I don't want to be the one," she says, her voice wavering a little.

He does some self-deprecating quip and she finally smiles. She leans back onto the pillows and he figures that's his cue. The sparkle is back in her eyes. It's not a fire, not yet, but she's on her way again. He stands to leave.

Before he can make his awkward exit, her voice calls him back. "Spike… Could you stay here?" Her words are timid, and he can't imagine quite what she means. He glances toward the La-Z-Boy in the corner, but she shocks him again. "No. I mean… here." She pats the bed next to her, and his heart fairly blooms. "Will you just hold me?"

He nods and steps up to the bed. In almost no time at all, his arms are wrapped around her and their legs are tangled together, her head resting on his chest. It's the closest he's been to heaven in far too long.

She's asleep in five minutes. He looks down at her, those tired eyes finally closed and the tense lines around her mouth finally relaxed. Before he thinks, he's leaning down to press a long kiss to her forehead. But a few centimeters away, he stops himself. It's not his right, and she's barely asleep. He can't wake her.

The final day's coming soon, and this—this is everything. Tonight, he'll settle for holding her, and he'll see what the morning holds.


	6. Afterward

He stood at the window. A few dozen paces away: just far enough that she wouldn't be able to sense him, but he could still see her.

Golden, shining, magnificent. Effulgent.

She was curled into an arm chair, her hair swept over the arm rest. He couldn't quite tell if she was sleeping, but he would guess that she wasn't.

He could _kill_ Angel for making and/or letting him stay away for so long, but that wasn't a possibility anymore. Angel, Lorne, Wes, Fred, Illyria, Gunn—all gone. He was alone. Where else could he go?

She stirred in the chair, straightened just a little. He finally tore his eyes away from her and glanced around the rest of the room. It looked like the room had exploded with glad tidings of great joy. Was it really Christmas?

Dawn was across from her sister, a bland-looking boy with brown hair next to her. Giles was next to the bit, hair and face grayer than ever. Willow and Xander sat in the chairs on either side of Buffy, both still mourning the losses of their loved ones.

None of the little slayers were there, much to his relief. Nothing wrong with new ones, of course, but Christmas is for family. The young ones weren't family, couldn't be like these were.

Like he wasn't, like he could never be.

This was his gift to himself. He would make sure she was okay, prowl around the little English town for a while. Be alone like he hadn't been since before Dru found him. Protect the Bit and the one he could never stop loving. Stay away from the sunlight.

Buffy suddenly stood up and he realized with consternation that he'd taken four steps forward, closer to the house and well within Buffy's sensory range. He took a few steps back, tried to escape her notice, but it wasn't soon enough, for the front door burst open.

Light poured around her. She took two steps onto the front porch, her eyes finding him with ease. He watched as her eyes widened. He took another step away but it wasn't quick enough, because she ran across the snow-covered yard to stand a few yards away from him. The others in the living room didn't leave the room or scarcely move.

He blinked and she was standing right in front of him. They stared at each other for a moment. Buffy's green eyes were glowing in what he flattered himself might be shock. Some sort of pleased shock. She took one step closer. "How are you alive?" she asked.

He took an unneeded breath for courage. "The bloody jewelry held onto my essence or some nonsense and eventually Angel's posse figured out how to solidify me—"

"I know that part," she interrupted, her eyes sparking with anger. "Andrew told me. He was very eager to tell the tale and I had to threaten dismemberment before he agreed not to write up the whole story. How did you survive Los Angeles?"

His heart sank into the dark puddle that sort of wailed at the increase of sorrow. It was about to overflow, that depth of sadness. She only cared about Angel—just the same as ever. He never learned. "I don't know."

She inhaled slowly, the breath shaking a little. "I heard about Angel and the others. A demon came bragging a few weeks ago, actually."

"I hope you ripped it head to toe," he muttered, the anger flowing through him for a moment.

"But it didn't mention you before I hacked it into pieces." She stepped toward him, one more pace. "I thought you were _dead_. Based on the destruction it described—you should be dead."

He smirked, unable to control the impulse to tease even in the darkest of moments. "I _am_ dead, love, last I checked—"

Then he found himself with an armful of Buffy. She threw herself into his arms with a little sob and he stepped back to balance himself. He felt her tears on his neck as she buried her face away and he pulled her closer, his shock taking over the situation.

"Buffy…" he whispered into the wisps of long blonde sunshine hair that were trying to invade his mouth.

"I thought you were gone, you idiot," she murmured into his jacket. "I would never have gotten the chance to see you again. Because you didn't say hi in Rome and you never dropped by for the littlest of hellos even though you were still in the same _state_. California's big, but not so huge as to not stop by."

"Angel and I thought it would be best to let you move on—"

She scoffed, the sound simultaneously fond and scathing. "Since when do you listen to Angel?" She pulled away as he readjusted her in his arms—her legs had somehow ended up completely wrapped around his hips, and it was a slight weight he was incredibly surprised he was blessed to be able to relearn—and stared him down. "You were afraid."

He didn't see much point in arguing, so he just nodded a little as he wrapped his arms around her even tighter. The moment was finite and he intended to enjoy it as long and closely as possible.

"Why? I begged you not to stay in the cavern. I practically tugged you out of there before your stubborn self insisted on staying. I told you I _love_ you."

He was rendered fairly flabbergasted. Which, for him, was pretty silent and mouth opening and closing not unlike a fish.

It had been so long since he last saw her, but he looked into her eyes and realized he could still read every flash of a thought that raced through them. _She hadn't been lying_. Those words that had kept him alive in the first few weeks of being incorporeal and then the long months afterward—they weren't just the beautiful dream of placation he'd convinced himself they were. She _meant_ it.

"I—I didn't know how to believe it," he whispered.

Her eyes shone. She smiled and draped her arms over his shoulders, one hand weaving into his slightly too-long and definitely-not-bleached hair. "I still mean it, you idiot."

And then she leaned down and kissed him.

He'd kissed Buffy a thousand times before, but this was different. First time he'd ever been sure she loved him back. There'd been occasions before when he thought she did love him, but it was never like this. He felt like pure sunshine was touching him. Eventually, it was him making the desperate moan and losing his balance.

As they laid there, sprawled in the snow, switching back and forth between laughing at the situation and snogging each other's brains out, Spike realized something he had to tell her.

He pulled away with a reluctant groan, his hands resting on Buffy's hips.

"What?" she asked, an irresistible pout forming. He kissed her again, to bring back the smile. She beamed, and it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

He let his head fall back into the snow and just stared up at Buffy. He heard Dawn and Giles stepping into the front lawn. "For the first time since the Hellmouth… I'm happy. Completely and incandescently happy."

Buffy's grin only grew. "You romantic." She stared at him for a second, mapping out his face again. He felt her eyes rest on the new scars that hadn't quite healed. "Me too."

And she kissed him again.

And the rest of the world faded away, leaving just the two of them, light blooming around them.


End file.
